I Can't Go Without Saying It

Like many of you I was hit hard by the news of Robin Williams' death yesterday. It was unexpected and shocking and then so very sad.

I never really get attached to celebrities. Not the way others do. I don't get crushes on them, I don't care about their personal lives or who's dating who. I don't pay that much attention other than viewing their work to relieve myself from the burdens of my life for a while.

A lot of different emotions came up for me yesterday. And it was confusing. 

At first I was in shock. Then I was sad. But the most confusing part were the memories and then the "aha" moment that this brought up.

When the movie, Dead Poets Society first came out, I remember watching it with my dad. I loved that movie. I wasn't very old when it came out but I was intelligent enough to mostly understand.

I was heavily involved in music in high school. Someone had put the poem, O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman to music, not uncommon for a well-known poem to be put together in choral format. At the same time, I was taking a high school English class. We happened to be studying this poem and poet at the time we were rehearsing the music.

My English teacher wasn't like Mr. Keating. But he had a sense of humor. He was also the football coach and he knew one of his football players was in my class. My English teacher seemed to make it his mission to embarrass his students, especially the football players.

Knowing it would embarrass this particular student, he told him to stand on his desk and sing, O Captain! My Captain! for the class. I guess the football player had an image to uphold because he refused to do it. But I raised my hand and said, "I will!"

So, to the bewilderment of my English teacher and the rest of the class, I climbed on top of my desk and sang one of the verses from the poem/music we were learning in choir.

This memory haunted me all evening. And my thoughts swirled as another memory came to mind.

I remembered when I was up in Glacier National Park one summer when I was in high school. They had most of the Going-To-The-Sun road closed off and there were rumors that it was because they were shooting a movie up there.

I immediately found out which movie it was because I had to see it. I found out the movie they were shooting  was What Dreams May Come. I didn't know what the movie was about but I knew Robin Williams was in it so I went to see it. I adored his character, risking his own eternal happiness in the depths of hell to save his suffering, lost wife.

To this day, Dead Poets Society and What Dreams May Come are two of my favorite movies. I could list at least half a dozen other movies that he was in where the message or the theme of the movie made me think. He really had a talent as an actor.

But I don't normally confuse actors and their roles. I don't normally confuse real life for fantasy. All of this going through my head yesterday kept me thinking and I wondered, Would it had made any difference if he had known just how much of an impact he had on my life?

I have been in the deepest despair before. I have felt the excruciating, intense pain that if I just slipped off of this earth, no one would even know that I was gone. That's what depression does to humans. It morphs all the good we have going for us into a jumbled ball of nothing-not-caring-blah.

But as much as I wonder if the knowledge that someone had been listening, someone had been paying attention to his uncanny ability to be characters who changed real people's lives, I do realize that sometimes things happen that we can't explain. 

So after sorting out all of these thoughts and memories and emotions yesterday, I realized that what I need to do is remember to actively and vocally appreciate people who do give me the type of gold that Mr. Williams gave me. 

It might not make a difference. But you never know. Sometimes in our suffering, the best remedy is the acknowledgement that there is someone, one person, who sees us for the lights that we truly are. 

~ s.h.

Home

Sunlight beams down through the crannies of the towering lodge pole pines and western cedars. Crisp, clean air fills my lungs and a slight breeze sends my senses sailing on a journey across time, through space, and higher than earth.

My body relaxes as the freshness of the pine-scented air fill my nostrils all the way down to my toes. In the quiet I hear the song of a bird, a chipmunk chattering, and the steady rush of water rolling and flowing soft, over smooth stones.

Here is my sanctuary.

In the safety of the trees.

Time stops. I’m swirling. I’m still.

A soft rustle of the breeze between the flora causes me to turn my head. I notice a soft texture of red standing out between all of the green hues. I recognize the flower as an Indian paintbrush. Its rose colored petals point up towards the sun that feeds its rouge tones, the soft, hair-like textures of its petals...

I do not disturb it. Only do I enjoy its beauty in the light of the morning rays beaming through the hundred foot tall trees. 

The earth here is protected. Everything is sacred. And I am home, in the forest, my sanctuary.

~s.h.